Why Lawyers Need Business Insurance

Lawyers handle volumes of sensitive personal information and your legal clients count on your confidentiality, security, and professionalism in handling their matters with the utmost care. With that comes exposure to a variety of significant and specific risks unique to the legal profession. Your legal practice also faces risks common to most small businesses like property damage to your office or loss of important files and records. Learn about the insurance protection small legal practices and lawyers like you most often purchase from The Hartford.

Business Owner’s Policy

Most legal practices have a Business Owner’s Policy (BOP) at the very least. Why? Because it protects your small legal business in much the same way a homeowner’s insurance policy protects your home and personal possessions.

By combining three basic insurance coverages that most every small business needs, including small law firms, a BOP can save you money on legal business insurance rates while safeguarding your law practice.

General Liability – helps protect your legal business from certain lawsuits alleging injuries or property damage that occurred as the result of your business operations, like if a client sustains an injury while on your office premises or an employee causes damage to a client’s property while dropping off documents at their home. It even helps cover certain claims of slander and libel. Business Liability insurance does not cover liabilities directly arising out of the professional legal services you may provide.

Commercial Property – helps protect the premises where you practice and the things you use to conduct your legal business, like the contents of your law library, office furniture, and office equipment, whether leased or owned by your small legal business.

Business Income – helps cover the loss of income when you can’t practice law because of covered property damage.

Law firms often store sensitive information on employees and clients such as Social Security numbers and financial information. If your law firm’s data is lost or stolen, Data Breach coverage may help cover the costs to deal with it. For example, it may help pay expenses incurred to notify employees and clients of the breach and to provide them identity protection solutions.

Employee Benefits Liability insurance may help cover costs to your law firm that arise from claims that errors or omissions were committed in the administration of your company’s employee benefits plan. For example, if an employee claims she is stuck with a large medical bill because your company misinformed her about your health benefits plan, Employee benefits liability from The Hartford may help cover the costs your company incurs related to her claim.

While conducting business off premises, Limited Care, Custody or Control Property coverage may help cover the costs to your law firm in the event that a customer’s property is damaged while in your care. For example, if your law firm accidentally damages valuable assets that were being used in a case, Limited Care, Custody or Control Property Damage coverage may help cover the costs incurred by your business related to the damage claim.

Our Business Income Extension for Cloud Service Interruption may help replace income your law firm loses as the result of an interruption in cloud services. For example, if the cloud service your law firm uses to maintain records of client information goes down, this optional coverage may help replace the business income you lose as a result.

Did you know that Business Income coverage doesn't typically cover income lost as a result of an employee being absent from work? Our Business Income Extension for Essential Personnel coverage helps provide both Business Income and Extra Expense coverage when business operations are impacted due to the sudden and unexpected absence of an employee, who meets the definition of an "essential person."

Additional Solutions

Required by most states, workers’ compensation insurance provides benefits to your legal business’s employees for work-related injuries or illnesses including medical care, wages from lost work time, and more. And if the worker’s family decides to sue you, coverage can help your legal firm with related legal fees. Small law firms are among the many businesses that have been turning to The Hartford for workers’ compensation coverage for more than a century.

Do you ever use your car for work, for example to go to court, meet clients outside your office, attend conferences, pick-up office supplies, or more? A Business Auto Policy provides coverage generally not included in a personal auto insurance policy. It can cover you or an employee of your legal business when a personally owned vehicle, used for business purposes, is involved in an accident.

If you run your legal practice out of your home, you probably want a Business Owner’s Policy (BOP). A BOP provides coverage not generally available with a homeowner’s insurance policy. Ask yourself, “Do I have law clients come to my home, receive work documents, business mail or deliveries for my business at my house, or have employees at my home”? If so, your agent or a representative from The Hartford can help you select the right coverage to protect your small legal business.

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The coverages and services described herein are summaries only. All policies should be read carefully to determine exclusions, limitations and other terms and conditions. In the event of a conflict, the terms and conditions of the policy will govern. All coverages and services may not be available for all businesses or in all states. Please contact your agent or broker for details.